These videos were a little hard to follow at first. Not because I wasn't reading, they thankfully had many of the lines on the screen and spoke at a pace that this visual learner could keep up with. However, they had so many different points to make and used so many different stories from around the ancient world to make these points that it got confusing. I found myself thinking "Ok we are in India. No wait, we're talking about Persia now. Wait, Greece was matriarchal? I don't think that's true... dang it I missed something about Nepal!" I had to watch the first half of the first video twice just to get into the swing of things.
These first two stories highlighted the role of gender in ancient societies (into the 19th century) and how that was represented in stories of goddesses. the first video talked about how these women had agency of their body. They could go from man to man freely and chose their lovers. There was really no reproductive need for a less than perfect man, but women are necessary for reproduction.
However the second video showed how that was turned on its head when people were settling down, planting farms and men took over everything. All women had left was their bodies and sex. The story talked about how women became whores which went from something positive and liberating to a pejorative term. Marriage laws were enacted to keep women's number of lover restricted to 4 or as little as one, her husband. The choice and liberation of the early human civilizations were being stripped from women.
The story I found the most unsettling was the story of the Nepali girls who were "sacred": deukis. Men could sleep with them to be "cured" of illnesses. It reminded me of the Vestal Virgins, but instead of remaining chaste to be sacred, these women are forced to have sex because they are sacred.
Gaia's Secrets: Pattanaik, Seven Secrets of the Goddesses 2016
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